14, WILKES STREET

Reasons for Designation

No 14 Wilkes Street is designated for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: although refaced in the late C19, the original house of 1724-5 survives to a substantial degree * Interiors: good survival of interior plan, fittings and joinery * Historic interest: an important survival from the early C18 development of Spitalfields, an area of outstanding significance * Group value: with Nos 14 Wilkes Street and 18 Hanbury Street, and other contemporary listed buildings in Wilkes Street

Details

788/0/10237 WILKES STREET 20-MAY-10 14

GV II Terraced house. 1724-25. Built by James Pitman, carpenter. Refaced late C19.

PLAN: Two rooms deep with hall to S side; stair adjacent to rear room rising against inner wall. A large opening has been made between the ground-floor rooms, but plan is otherwise unaltered.

EXTERIOR: The house is built in brick and is three-storeys high plus basement and garret. Façade of three bays. The red-brick elevation with terracotta bands between the storeys is a late-C19 refacing, retaining the C18 fenestration pattern. C18 six-panelled door. Rear elevation has segmental-headed windows with exposed sash boxes. Six-over-six pane timber sash window, some modern replacements. M-shaped roof clad in old pantiles. Casement windows to garret.

INTERIOR: Hall with full-height panelling (cornice removed) to left and half-height panelling to right-hand side with moulded rail. Ground and first-floor rooms have full-height panelling with box cornices; second-floor rooms also panelled. There are a number of original two-panelled doors. Ground-floor front room has a pair of buffet niches to either side of the chimney breast, with arched heads and curved-profile shelves. Marble chimneypiece, probably 1840s. First-floor front room has cupboards to either side of the chimney breast. Marble chimneypiece in Gothic style, 1840s, probably imported from elsewhere. Fireplace to second-floor front room with flush surround and early-C19 hob grate. Rear rooms have chimney breasts set into the rear angle with the party wall; those to ground and first floors with original flush surrounds. Open-string stair has a moulded handrail, column newel posts with square caps, turned balusters, scroll silhouette tread-ends and a curtail. It may incorporate original elements but appears to have been reconstructed with salvaged components, and is likely to have had a close-string originally. Panelled inner string with ramped rail. In the roof is a timber internal gutter to channel rainwater into the central valley gutter, probably an original feature.

HISTORY: Wilkes Street, named Wood Street until the late C19, formed part of the Wood-Michell Estate, which was developed 1718-28 by Charles Wood of Lincoln's Inn and Simon Michell of the Middle Temple. Nos 14 and 16 Wilkes Street (originally Nos 8 and 9 Wood Street respectively) and Nos 18 and 20-22 Hanbury Street (Nos 10 Wood Street and 8 Brown's Lane), a group of four terraced houses, were built by James Pitman, citizen and carpenter of London, under a building lease granted by Wood and Michell in March 1723/4. In September 1725 Pitman assigned the lease and houses to a mercer for £1,540. In 1750 and 1773 No 14 Wilkes Street was occupied by John Freemount and Company, weavers.

The silk industry became heavily concentrated in Spitalfields from the late C17, fuelled by the arrival of refugee Huguenot silk weavers from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) outlawed Protestant worship. Although frequently described as "weavers' houses", the houses in Wilkes Street, Fournier Street and their environs were of a higher social order, occupied by the wealthier class of merchants and silk masters; the characteristic glazed weavers' garrets being added later in the C18 as the area's social status declined.

SOURCES: Survey of London: volume 27: Spitalfields and Mile End New Town (1957). 189-193.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: No 14 Wilkes Street is designated for the following principal reasons: * Special architectural interest: although refaced in the late C19, the original house of 1724-5 survives to substantial degree * Interiors: good survival of interior plan, fittings and joinery * Special historic interest: as a survival from the early-C18 development of Spitalfields, an area of outstanding historical significance * Group value: with Nos 14 Wilkes Street and 18 Hanbury Street, and with other C18 listed buildings in Wilkes Street

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

504536

Legacy System:

LBS

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